Why we keep having school shootings

Officials in the small Kern County community, around 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles, are investigating reports that the boy had a hit list of students he felt had bullied him that he had compiled last year, reports the Bakersfield Californian. “He had intended targets. There's no question,” Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.

Same old story. A bullied kid finally reaches the breaking point and, feeling he has no recourse, seeks to take revenge upon his attackers.

And how do we as a country respond? We villainize the victim of the original crime and lionize the aggressors.

It doesn't start at the shooting phase, though. It starts a lot sooner. If a kid fights back against bullies with his fists then our "zero tolerance" policies guarantee that the victim will be the one who pays worse than the bullies who seek to destroy his life. Stand up for yourself with administrators and you're just making yourself a bigger target for the bullies. You dig yourself deeper into the lower castes of the school, which makes you an even more attractive target for abuse.

Pretty soon, a kid feels he has no way out. I touched on this when I wrote A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Columbine, as expressed by my narrator, Jake:

Let me get one thing clear: if you have never thought about shooting up your school, you have never been a teenager, and anyone who says they don’t know what would drive a kid to doing it is either incredibly dense or a horrible liar.

The teenage years are incredibly hard on kids, with pressure from within and pressure from outside, and when you add in the fact that the modern high school is the best science project anyone could have ever dreamed up to study social cannibalism, no one should really be surprised when kids’ minds burst like firecrackers tossed into a barbecue pit. Honestly, I consider the simple fact that more kids don’t take up arms against the seas of troubles that threaten to drown them a testament to self-restraint.

When you’re a kid, everything is the most important thing that has ever happened, and every insult is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Sure, you can get over it pretty quickly if you try, but in those minutes right after the incident, it can truly seem like your world is ending unless you do something drastic.
Now, imagine that these last straws are being dumped on your already loaded down with a book bag back, one each second, every second of every day. Social stratification pushing down upon your helpless body with tons of pressure. Pressure to conform, to belong, and to behave just like everybody else. Then factor in the incessant push to excel from the parental units, which they make sure is scratching away at you constantly like a rabid hamster stuffed under your baseball cap, and tell me you wouldn’t feel the need to go batshit from time to time.

It’s supposed to be the same for the jocks and the cheerleaders, and the other “popular” types, but unless you’re one of them, you’ll never understand how the hell it can be. When someone is dumping a truck full of manure on top of you, you don’t stop to contemplate whether he’s worried about how he’s going to make the mortgage payment next month, you concentrate on trying to get him to stop smothering you in shit.

And what compounds this problem is the way we as a culture react when a victim finally fights back. Again, from my narrator:

“For the record, guys, I’m with Mick part of the way on this. I have no problem seeing the assholes that got away with beating up Topher pay, and pay through the nose. I don’t think I’d mind seeing any and all of the other jocks get it, either. But there’s one important thing that we’re forgetting.” I paused for a second, cleared my throat, and fought the effort by my stomach to push some bile up into my mouth to shut me up. Like Mick and Topher, and probably Whitey, I was mad. Really mad, and I had to force the logical side of my brain to take control. “And that’s one simple fact: if there’s one problem with school shootings, other than the obvious carnage related difficulties, of course, it’s that people never seem to learn the lesson.”

I stopped again, and looked over the three of them. Topher was glaring even worse than he had been during Mick’s screed. Whitey looked intrigued, as if he guessed where I was going. Mick just crossed his arms and defiantly prodded me. “Go on.”

“By all rights, Columbine should have gotten the message across loud and clear to kids across the country: don’t fuck with the wrong people or you will end up dead. It didn’t, though, and neither did the killings that came later, because people love victims. Because a couple of kids who were sick of being kicked around killed their oppressors, they wound up making themselves into the bad guys, and made the bad guys into victims in everyone’s eyes. People were too overcome with grief over the senseless bloodshed to think about what had driven the two shooters to do what they did. And for those jocks, having their blood spilled wound up washing away their sins as far as everyone was concerned. Don’t think about what they were really like, turn them into perfect little angels in everyone’s eyes. And, personally, I am not really in favor of giving the world of jocks any new martyrs.”

If we started portraying these "victims" of shootings like the monsters they were, instead of pretending that they were harmless little lambs, then maybe some other bullies might start getting the message. Maybe administrators would start taking bullying seriously. Maybe we'd start attacking the problem with school violence at its root.

Zero tolerance for bullies, not for those that fight back. Expel the bullies. Protect the victims. Don't tolerate the Social Darwinism that goes on in the hallways.

Until you treat the disease, the symptoms will keep recurring. And far too many people are blind to what the real disease is.

3. I don't doubt this could be A reason. I doubt it is THE reason

Bullying is wrong on its own and it would be desirable, if infeasible, to reduce it to zero.

I think being bullied isn't so much a reason as it is experience(s) that cause emotions and perceptions, including a sense of having been wronged unfairly, etc. These feelings and thoughts surely can bend a person's motivation.

But a motivation can't actually be called THE reason, because a motivation to act on an ideation is simply an early step in a chain of decisions and actions that must be implemented for a shooting to take place.

Those steps ALL can be evaluated for the possibility of a hazard reducing action.

Many of the high profile massacres that get in-depth coverage include multiple places where interventions which are required by law and which could have functioned to prevent disaster.

4. Good post

5. I never thought about shooting up my school. Of course my high school

days were long before the ascendancy of the new NRA when the only people I ever heard of who had guns were the police and a few recently-returned veterans of WWII who had an unloaded "souvenir" pistol tucked away on an upper shelf in oiled rags in a shoebox.

6. Bullies didn't exist before 1999?

Columbine was in 1999. Certainly bullies existed before then as I remember them all too well. Why didn't the pre-Columbine victims of bullies lash out? And why would they not only go after the bully but also after innocent kids as well?

I don't know. I'm asking. But I sure don't think that bullies are the main reason. If that were the case, school shootings would have begun decades ago when every kid over 12 owned a hunting rifle.

27. in Columbine the Killer Harris was the Bully

7. Yes, it was those mean old bullies at Sany Hook elementary that made Lanza go off,

Look, I see some value to in the insight that you're presenting, but presenting it as THE reason is simply wrong. I know that people would like a nice neat answer, all tied up with a bow, but there simply isn't one.

56. ok Dr Frist.

10. Disagree on one point

If we started portraying these "victims" of shootings like the monsters they were, instead of pretending that they were harmless little lambs,

Not all of the victims are bullies. There are a lot that end up paying the supreme penalty for the misdeeds of others.

Our current system is set up to support the bullies and push the outsiders farther out. A victim of bullying is told report it- but nothing happens. We have seen how athletes are protected from punishment for their crimes. Or they are told ignore it and walk away. Yet each and every day they are subjected to torture with growing frustration of powerlessness and a complete lack of support.

I will never condone a shooting outside of an immediate self defense situation, but I can understand what leads some to believe they have no other option but to take matters into their own hands.

11. 1.The bullying meme has been refuted in re: Columbine

2. Some kids judge any or all slights as bullying and they maintain a mental log of who or when or why. As self absorbed youth, they harbor and guard their perceptions, often refusing to consider alternatives or their part in a conflict

3. School administrators uniformly take bullying seriously. So do teachers, so do parents, everyone does.

4. Social isolation is as devastating for youth as bullying.

5. Youth are uncivilized true-Equating that fact of life with social cannabilism denies the fact that the majority of kids do socialize appropriately and enjoy their HS experience.

15. No, it really was not refuted. Not well or decisively.

I live here. Lived through it. Live a few miles away. Know kids who were barricaded in various parts of the school on that day and the lead FBI man on the scene, whose son was in the building and who played soccer with my son.

What we got afterwards was a lot of people denying any and all responsibility. Period. A lot of people saying there was nothing more they could have done. There are 2 points I'd like to make. Dylan had been bullied. He was very tall and thin. Going through an awkward stage that lasted longer than most kids. He was ostracized. Which is a form of bullying in itself. This left him open to anyone who would pay him any attention.

Enter Eric Harris. The kid who knows how to manipulate. It's no coincidence that the first time Dylan ever got into trouble was after Eric moved to Colorado. And because Dylan had no other friends at Columbine, he kept seeing Eric even after that, keeping it a secret from his parents. Ultimately this meant that Dylan was in Eric's control, with no input at all in the situation from his parents.

There was one huge mistake made by a teacher. She didn't give Mrs Klebold a copy of a violent story that Dylan had written. It might have given some insight into how troubled he was. It might have been a cry for help, a reason to start some different dialogue. Just maybe. Maybe he would have admitted the whole damned thing. Who knows now. We will never know. It seems that just once somebody at that school could have cared enough about Dylan to make an effort. Just once. If not to include him in anything, then just to say, hey, this is beyond the acceptable norm and maybe he needs help. And then just maybe all those kids would be alive, and all the injured kids would be walking and not still having nightmares every night.

14. Going postal...

otherwise known as workplace violence is something many adults can relate to. Say a person who has kids to buy xmas gifts for gets fired the day after Thanksgiving after having had their car repossessed.... How many adults would be willing to try to understand what drove that if that person if they tried to kill their boss?
Most of us whose school experiences reach back a few years haven't a clue what kids' everyday school experience is like today. When In 1983 a kid in my class shot himself. We were as mystified by his access to a gun as we were shocked by the suicide itself.

Simplistic demonizing the angry, troubled kids who react to their environment with violence is lazy. These are kids who hate themselves for reasons unknown to us. They know their lives are ruined by their actions.

Having gone to school once ourselves does not translate to the experiences of young people in a world of gun and crime glorification, expanded technology, and greater social\financial disparity.

18. Off the Deep End?

The article isn't about where the drug war and weapons originate. Who is gladly ignoring it, you or the article? What part of it had to do with Alex Jones or globalism?

What I got from the article was about addressing the root problems causing the violence in our society, and organizing our communities to find ways to improve, if not solve, some of these problems. How unfortunate you think that is just "crapola."

20. Structural Issues

Do you think the entire article should be debunked because it argues on globalism and Mexico's gun problem due to structural issues? I'm not saying these issues don't matter, but I don't see how they are going into ct territory, either.

But even if they are, should the solutions proffered in the article not be considered?

21. You can have the discussion without going to ct territory.

Since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Connecticut, we have had many discussions on the sources of gun violence in our country. We were all shocked. Many fingers are pointing at both Hollywood and the video game industry. If we are to believe them, all this would go away if we removed the glorification of violence from the media.

I will be the first to admit this: Call of Duty is violent. It simulates war. We would be surprised if it wasn’t. It is also rated M by the ESRB, that would be for seventeen year olds and older. It’s not meant for kids. Ratings work, only if we use them as a guide.

I will also admit that a James Bond movie is pure schlock with quite a bit of violence. There are many other titles out there that include explosions, gun play, and bloody gore. Need I mention the Die Hard series? Argue all you want about how video games and movies encourage violent acts. But that’s merely scratching the surface and doesn’t get to the root of the real problem.

36. The main reason why there is more violence in the U.S. is due to the high level of hate propaganda.

The hatred of society is generalized to the point where those who see themselves as "losers" feel it necessary to lash out at anyone, not just their perceived enemies.

The Rush Limbaughs and that ilk, the racist bigots, and their ilk, the NRA ("they are coming to take your guns away") and their ilk, the economically illiterate who continually, and erroneously, call Social Security an "entitlement", FOX "News", the crazy Tea Party types who spout both hate AND lunacy.

This constant harangue in the media and on the Internet that portrays just about everyone as the "enemy", and that there is "no hope" for a solution, has a nasty effect on the mental stability of those people who resort to violence to "solve" their problems.

37. Mexico has more gun problems but no school shootings

I you look at their gun fatality statistics per 100,000, Mexico has more than the US. But the US seems to have more school tragedies.

My thought is, it's the focus on the family. Mexican families are more tight than American ones and the gun issue in Mexico is more to do with drug trafficking.

Same with our neighbor in Canada. Has anyone heard of school shootings there? In Canada, I imagine they have stiffer gun control there, so that maybe the major reason. I think we need to look at other countries to see what we are doing wrong here.

Lets go even more extreme. How about school shootings in the Sudan or Somalia? Guns are rampant in those countries. Even children walk around with AK-47s. But you don't hear much about school massacres like you do here.

Something is going on here in America. It has to do with lack of values, respect and acceptance.

38. The children of Sandy Hook hadn't bullied that young man.

I get what you're saying, sorta. Bullying is always, always wrong. But not everybody responds to it in the same way. I was bullied (girl on girl) in elementary school because I was the one mixed race girl at a mostly black school. I got threatened and I got a black eye. But never once did I think of harming anyone.

49. Right. And in the schools, we watch them grow up.

41. what a dim and repulsive op, hon.

"If we started portraying these "victims" of shootings like the monsters they were, instead of pretending that they were harmless little lambs, then maybe some other bullies might start getting the message. Maybe administrators would start taking bullying seriously. Maybe we'd start attacking the problem with school violence at its root. "

This is a chronological list of school shootings in the United States.

Prior to 1989, there were only a handful of incidents in which two or more victims were killed by firearms at a school, including the 1966 University of Texas massacre, the 1974 Olean High School shooting, the 1976 California State University, Fullerton massacre, and the 1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting (the 1927 Bath School disaster was a bombing, not a shooting, with a firearm used only to detonate explosives). School shootings prior to the late 1990s, when they received intensive press and official coverage, were considered local incidents and may be substantially underreported in current tabulations, raising questions as to whether school shootings are actually increasing or are simply receiving more attention in recent years. From 1989 to 2012, there have been at least 40 such incidents.>>>>>MORE
much more

57. oh those vile little monsters in Newtown CT.

46. The Columbine Shooters

Were blowing away people that didn't know them and people that they had intimidated with their own anti-social behavior. They killed one girl after she answered, "yes" to the question of being a Christian. It wasn't a targeted attack. They, for lack of a better term, wanted to watch the world burn.

That being said, "Zero Tolerance" is a rdiculous piece of garbage. It's proper name is "Zero thought". School Administrators just punish everyone involved whether they were a victim defending themselves or a bully, or just a student who tripped across an imaginary line that they didn't know about while not harming anyone.

I have a lot of questions for Adam Lanza if he was still around. I suspect we will never see the full coroner's report for him. I think his mother should have removed the weapons from the house based on what she told her friends.

50. Yes and no

I rec'd this because I think the OP makes an important point about high school.

I think the problems in high school are less about bullying as much as they are about academics and about the focus put on different things.

Hear me out: socially, high school is hell *but* it doesn't count. 4 years after high school, nobody cares if you were the class nerd or the captain of the football team.

Academically, high school does count, and it counts for a lot, but it's also an easy place to be a fuckup.

My high school was less jacked socially than a lot of other schools were. All the cool kids were in drama, and sports were an afterthought. The captain of the cheerleading squad was also the ASB president, active in the black student union, and the valedictorian.

Back in the day, there were areas that I really struggled in and areas that I really excelled in, and it was true for my friends, too.

I think we need a big, big push to get arts, music, drama, and all kinds of other activities back into the classroom, and I think we need to give these things value, and make a big deal out of them.

It takes the same amount of money to hire a good drama teacher as it takes to hire another cop, but hella kids from my school went on to work in acting, and I don't know a single cop from my cohort. If we have more people in drama, we need fewer cops, but the converse is not true.

52. ...

There are many problems on many levels as to why we're seeing what we see these days. We have kids growing up where "everyone gets a trophy"...they never learn the life lessons of failure, rebound, and recovery. They're brought up believing that their own self esteem trumps all else, no naturally they feel somehow "violated" when they're less popular, she says 'no' to his prom invite, he doesn't get accepted to the college of choice, etc.

We also live in a culture (at least for schools) where in many cases, the bully and the victim are treated equal. "It takes two to fight", punishing both when a fight eventually breaks out, teaching the victim that his choices are to be a perpetual victim or take matters into his own hands.

I wouldn't say we are "lionizing" the perp in any way whatsoever here. I have not heard groups defending the shooters. Defending the right to keep and bear arms, yes, but not defending the criminal.

To argue to ban guns after these atrocities is over-reactive and short sighted. It'd be like arguing to ban alcohol...or cars...after a drunk driver kills someone. What percentage of legal gun owners commit such acts?

We do need to do as effective job as we can keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, naturally, but if you ban them, you'll only accomplish disarming the law abiding.

Where were all these anti-gun advocates when a certain president was arming multiple extremely violent drug cartels in Mexico?

53. An excellent movie on this subject is "Murder by Proxy."

It starts with a close investigation of the thoughts and feelings of one of the Post Office employees in the first of the "going postal" shootings. The movie starts in black and white and shares a lot of insight into why we have so much of the kind of violence that happened at Sandy Hook.